Tessa slid the door shut, her mind racing. What on earth was that about? What was Jessamine doing, wandering the Institute in the dead of night, dressed like a boy? After hanging up her dressing gown, Tessa went to lie down on her bed. She felt tired down in the marrow of her bones, the sort of tired she had felt the night her aunt died, as if she had exhausted her body’s capacity to feel emotion. When she closed her eyes, she saw Jem’s face, and then Wil ’s, his hand to his bloody mouth. Thoughts of the two of them swirled together in her head until she fel asleep final y, not sure if she was dreaming of kissing one of them, or the other.
10
THE VIRTUE OF ANGELS
The virtue of angels is that they cannot deteriorate;
their flaw is that they cannot improve. Man’s
flaw is that he can deteriorate; and his virtue is
that he can improve.
—Hasidic saying
“I suppose you al know by now,” Wil remarked at breakfast the next morning, “that I went to an opium den last night.”
It was a subdued morning. It had dawned rainy and gray, and the Institute felt leadenly weighted down, as if the sky were pressing on it. Sophie passed in and out of the kitchen carrying steaming platters of food, her pale face looking pinched and smal ; Jessamine slumped tiredly over her tea; Charlotte looked weary and unwel from her night spent in the library; and Wil ’s eyes were red-rimmed, his cheek bruised where Jem had hit him. Only Henry, reading the paper with one hand while he stabbed at his eggs with the other, seemed to have any energy.
Jem was conspicuous mainly by his absence. When Tessa had woken up that morning, she had floated for a moment in a blissful state of forgetfulness, the events of the night before a dim blur. Then she had sat bolt upright, absolute horror crashing over her like a wave of scalding water.
Had she real y done al those things with Jem? His bed—his hands on her—the spil ed drugs. She had raised her hands and touched her hair. It fel free over her shoulders, where Jem had tugged it out of its plaits. Oh, God, she thought. I really did all that; that was me. She had pressed her hands to her eyes, feeling an overwhelming mix of confusion, terrified happiness—for she could not deny that it had been wonderful in its way— horror at herself, and hideous and total humiliation.
Jem would think she had utterly lost control of herself. No wonder he couldn’t face her at breakfast. She could barely face herself in the mirror.
“Did you hear me?” Wil said again, clearly disappointed at the reception of his announcement. “I said I went to an opium den last night.”
Charlotte looked up from her toast. Slowly she folded her newspaper, set it on the table beside her, and pushed her reading glasses down her upturned nose. “No,” she said. “That undoubtedly glorious aspect of your recent activities was unknown to us, in fact.”
“So is that where you’ve been al this time?” Jessamine asked listlessly, taking a sugar cube from the bowl and biting into it. “Are you quite a hopeless addict now? They say it takes only one or two doses.”
“It wasn’t real y an opium den,” Tessa protested before she could stop herself. “That is to say—they seemed to have more of a trade in magic powders and things like that.”
“So perhaps not an opium den precisely,” said Wil , “but stil a den. Of vice!” he added, punctuating this last bit by stabbing his finger into the air.
“Oh, dear, not one of those places that’s run by ifrits,” sighed Charlotte. “Real y, Wil —”
“Exactly one of those places,” said Jem, coming into the breakfast room and sliding into a chair beside Charlotte—quite as far away from Tessa as it was possible to sit, she noticed, with a pinching feeling in her chest. He didn’t look at her either. “Off Whitechapel High Street.”
“And how do you and Tessa know so much about it?” asked Jessamine, who appeared revitalized by either her sugar intake or the expectation of some good gossip, or both.
“I used a tracking spel to find Wil last night,” said Jem. “I was growing concerned at his absence. I thought he might have forgotten the way back to the Institute.”
“You worry too much,” said Jessamine. “It’s sil y.”
“You’re quite right. I won’t make that mistake again,” said Jem, reaching for the dish of kedgeree. “As it turned out, Wil wasn’t in need of my assistance at al .”
Wil looked at Jem thoughtful y. “I seem to have woken up with what they cal a Monday mouse,” he said, pointing at the bruised skin under his eye. “Any idea where I got it?”
“None.” Jem helped himself to some tea.
“Eggs,” said Henry dreamily, looking at his plate. “I do love eggs. I could eat them al day.”
“Was there real y a need to bring Tessa with you to Whitechapel?” Charlotte asked Jem, sliding her glasses off and placing them on the newspaper. Her brown eyes were reproachful.
“Tessa is not made of delicate china,” said Jem. “She wil not break.”
For some reason this statement, though he said it stil without looking at her, sent a flood of images through Tessa’s mind of the night before—of clinging to Jem in the shadows of his bed, his hands gripping her shoulders, their mouths fierce on each other’s. No, he had not treated her as if she were breakable then. A boiling flood of heat seared her cheeks, and she looked down quickly, praying for her blush to go away.
“You might be surprised to know,” said Wil , “that I saw something rather interesting in the opium den.”
“I’m sure you did,” said Charlotte with asperity.